


when midnight falls in the glade of stars

by lockettxs



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: AU-gust 2020, Alternate Universe - Dungeons & Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Animal Death, Divine My Unite | Byleth, Elves, Elves are Dicks, F/F, F/M, Female My Unit | Byleth, Male My Unit | Byleth, Murder, My Unit | Byleth Triplets, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth, Other, Sexy Ethereal Goddess Byleth, Tieflings, Triplets, tagging this is wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25707367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lockettxs/pseuds/lockettxs
Summary: Sothis splits herself into three, and is born into the world as the triplets Byleth. With her divinity split, they each come to embody one of her aspects in its entirety, gods in their own right. All who come to them come in need, and all shall have their greatest desires granted.
Relationships: Jeritza von Hrym/My Unit | Byleth, Manuela Casagranda/My Unit | Byleth, Mercedes von Martritz/My Unit | Byleth, My Unit | Byleth & My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	1. Act I

**Author's Note:**

> i fucked around and i found out. tw for description of dead animals in a v fantasy detached way. also murder. because jeritza. whatever you played the game you know the deal

Byleth, Byleth, Byleth.

The three, sin-born, heaven-made. The most beautiful mix of vice and virtue, damnation and salvation. How could the triplets ever have a normal life, when they lived to serve the divine Sothis? When She had pressed her element, her very spirit, into each one of them. Identical, named the same, raised in the care of their father in that dark glade, hidden deep in the forest. 

Their horns gleaming, teeth sharp, nails pointed. 

Byleth, Byleth,  _ Byleth. _

* * *

Jeritza von Hrym was a member of one of the most prestigious houses of the elven council. Once. No more, nay, now he was but a simple soldier, adopted into a dying clan. Of course, he remembered nothing of the time before he became one of them other than the image of his smiling sister, and the scent of freshly baked cake. How he could curse himself a million times over for not being able to remember where, in all the worlds, she actually  _ was.  _

Others would pray to the Lady. To Sothis in moments of need. He was not like them. 

He paid his visits to the augurs, waited as they watched the flight of the birds and the spilling of the guts of animals. They claimed no connection to Sothis--instead they were servants of Nemesis, Her divine rival. Or, in Jeritza’s opinion, the man who managed to actually get shit done. 

But the augurs minced words and sweetened their statements; they could not be trusted to provide him with the truth. So, he sought it for himself. At first he killed animals, but their stench made him sick, and he found their guts hard to read. Still he persisted until he managed to find star charts in spleens, and blueprints in blood. They took him north. 

North he went.

But he awoke one day, covered in blood, the corpse of a man before him, and no memory. Only a human, luckily, but elves--they did not do this--they did not kill elvenlike. So as not to waste the body, he read the guts, but the directions were scrambled, unclear. All he managed to read was a name. 

_ Byleth Conducticius.  _ Byleth the Mercenary.

* * *

They would sing together in the glade, and their voices seemed to carry all the way up to the stars, to the darkness beyond. Their father would watch them from the rocks, sharpening his blades as he did so, the spear that struck down the creatures they would eat for dinner. They had their horns from him--glistening in the darkest, deepest emerald, so murky it was almost black. And yet, from their mother, the three had freckles the colour of specks of light. Their skin mirrored the eternal night above them, and their song hallowed it.

But the idyll of such a childhood could not continue forever. 

Byleth, the youngest Byleth, the third, followed their father out into the woods. The holy light of Sothis shone in their eyes as they walked, green as the sea, green as fresh grass, green as jade. They walked, their hands, still elegant and youthful, brushing against the leaves of plants, their bare feet leaving footprints of flowers in their wake. Their humming tempted the animals closer, and it was their hunting knife that the rabbit succumbed to. And, just like that, they were trapped. 

They were struck with a detached curiosity at the sight of the dead creature, they slipped their finger into the wound, marvelled as it came away bloody. They had never seen blood before. 

And so they inherited the sins of their father, became the tiefling, the Ashen Demon. Byleth Conducticius, The Mercenary. And Sothis in Her form as the Reaper, the Taker of souls, the Arbiter of Heaven and Hell. And, from that day forth, they wandered the twilight forests with their blade held steady, willing to take a life in exchange for a prayer.

* * *

Mercedes, it was said, was sweet as spun sugar, and more precious than a pot of gold. The Mother Superior would pinch her cheeks and feed her honey cakes, then let her hang the fresh laundry out to dry. She was a strange child for liking fresh laundry, for savouring the scent. She liked the mundanity of it, though, with the clean white sheets, simple, free. They flapped in the wind like flags of surrender--a surrender to Sothis, to life, to fate; it didn’t matter, Mercedes had always learned to surrender control to those greater than her in her life.

Until she was told she would marry, adorn her pointed ears in wedding jewels, and clasp her hand with the youthful heir of an elven tribe from the west, one with flame-hair, and eyes only for his companion and ally. Perhaps they could be friends; he seemed friendly enough. But still, the match would be loveless, and she would be taken away from the cloistered halls in which she had grown into a young woman.

She had a duty. She had a Sacred Calling. If it was to be the noble Sylvain’s wife, then she should surrender to it, should she not?

But it didn’t feel quite right. So instead of packing up her things to travel the woods to see this man, she snuck away to the library, and buried herself in the books, the records of the Saints and the nuns of the monastery, of the monks and paladins. There were tales, she read, that were little more than folklore, of a mysterious woman, a spirit, perhaps a deity, who sat in the moonlit springs of the icy north, and wore a crown of silver thorns. 

It was said that she could grant any wish, so long as the proper payment was made. She was power incarnate, the books declared. 

Every illustration was different, in some her hair was white, in others dark as ink. In some her eyes were black as the depths of her pool, in others they shone with starlight. In all she bore a scar at the centre of her chest in the shape of a crescent moon. In all, Mercedes thought, she was beautiful. 

As loud as she dared, she whispered her request into the air, and waited for the library to answer it, a book falling from a high shelf, with barely a moment for her to leap and catch it before it woke the whole nunnery. It fell open to a page written in some obscure language, and then highlighted the information she wanted in bright light.

Byleth was the spirit’s name. Byleth Regina. Byleth the Queen.

* * *

Their youngest, their little Byleth did not return for a day. And then another. And another. And the eldest Byleth worried for them, but could not afford to let the emotion run away with her. Instead, she drove her will into finding them, the forest parted before her, let her walk through it with ease. It followed her command as if it was made for it, and she walked, leaving her brother in the clearing to search for their sibling. 

She traced rumours and myths that spread through the world as a wildfire blaze, a creature so unholy that it could be caught in trees, eating the flesh of carrion birds, that it would be sighted in graveyards, laying single petals on the graves of those it had served.  _ It,  _ they called them. Her sibling was not an  _ it.  _ Her sibling was not a  _ thing.  _

In towns people told her things they had never told anyone ever before, they gave her wine, board, money, secrets. They offered her their finest weapons for free or discount. In turn, she blessed each of them. A good harvest, a healthy baby. It was as easy for her as breathing. She took their taxes, and returned their assistance to them in some way they could actually  _ use.  _ And she searched for her sibling. 

Eventually, her path took her north, to the sacred pools of moonlight, where she found them, her little Byleth, standing at the centre of the water. Two shining sickle swords in their hands. Their arms were scarred, their gaze heavy. 

_ I have found your throne, sister.  _ They said, stepped aside. The rock was the reflection of the moon made manifest.  _ I have for you your crown of stars.  _ Atop it lay a circlet carved from bone, pristine and white. This was where she was meant to be. She picked it up, sat it upon her brow, and she  _ knew.  _ She knew her right name.

She was not simply Byleth, the eldest Byleth. She was Byleth Regina. Byleth the Queen, the Fell Star.

* * *

Manuela was a songbird. She was not one of the church’s choir, harmonising in delightful holiness, no. She was scandalous, she sang of war, blood, lust, envy. The impure was her domain, and yet, when she passed by the temples of the elves, and caught sight of their goddess through the entryways, she was always given pause. If only she could be holy.

But no.

Instead, she drank and sang and took in little Dorothea, propped the girl on her knee and taught her sailor’s jaunts about wine and women. The girl sang them back to her with the voice of an angel, and Manuela looked at her deeply, wondered if she was the salvation a part of her so desperately seeked.

Dorothea grew up, loved her surrogate sister Manuela, tried to remind her to keep her home tidy, that the elves mocked them for enough as it was--they didn’t need mess adding to the list. They hated the elves; she didn’t know of a single human who didn’t. She hated the elves and their silent, uncaring goddess, who let the majority of her supposed creations starve in the streets and put themselves through hell just to survive. And she especially hated their disdain for all things human--human hair, that grew dark and unruly, human skin, that only came in the shades of the earth, human stature, human custom, human care. 

She taught Dorothea to wear her hair loose and wild, to make sure her heels were as obvious as possible, to paint brown over her eyes and mahogany on her lips. And she, Manuela, did the same. They were human, the two of them. Human songstresses, who were better than any elves despite their wretched birth. Oh, how she loved to watch the elves look at them, their tiny brains scrambling to find some justification as to how two humans, two humans who weren’t even worshippers of their goddess, could have ended up so blessed. 

Maybe their goddess wasn’t as pure as they liked.

And yet, despite it all, she still found herself caught at the gates of temples, trying to find Sothis in the stained glass, trying to find some sort of faith in something,  _ anything.  _ All she had ever been able to trust had been herself, and now even that was falling apart. She woke up hungover more often than she did sober, these days. She was a wreck, a mess, in a new man’s bed every other night. And she appreciated the hedonism, the life of pleasure and debauchery, but somewhere deep inside there was some stirring, some longing for  _ more.  _

She kept hearing the same word over and over again, the same name. In conversation at the market, in the hum of the audience before her performances, in the song of the birds. 

_ Byleth, Byleth, Byleth.  _ She heard.  _ Sacerdos. Sacerdos. Sacerdos. _

* * *

The second Byleth understood the plights of his siblings. They were his mirrors, and yet they were all so different. Still it was alright, he loved them nonetheless. The Ashen Demon was known as some feral creature of the forest, but he remembered the way they stared blankly at birds, the way they spoke so blandly, as if all that existed in their mind was the memory of the trout they had eaten for dinner three hours earlier. And the Fell Star was a formidable force. She ruled her domain with iron and tenderness; how could he be anything but proud of her? And yet he remembered the blank widening of her eyes when creatures jumped out of the forest at them; her deadpan humour as she teased the two of them. 

Since that day, the day upon which the Ashen Demon had left the glade to search for their father, he had only heard tales of his siblings, rumours of the great deeds that they had done. But he stayed alone in the glade, waiting, for he hoped desperately that they would return home someday, that they would be three again. 

Until time hardened him, fired and reforged him, made him into a man. He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the pool, his eyes looked as deep as the water, his face was carved in a softer image of their father. 

Somehow, looking at himself, he knew what to do. 

He waved a hand over the surface of the water, and it rippled beneath him until it became a mirror, a mirror to the part of himself that he knew was there, that he could hear deep within himself. The form of a woman, of a girl. Then the form of himself again. And then he saw the past and the future, and he saw his own heart beating in rhythms unusual. And he realised exactly what he was--what he had always had the potential to be, what he knew, despite that, he always would’ve become. 

Byleth Sacerdos. Byleth the Priest. He was ancient, and he was wise. As old as time itself, as empty as a divining dish. The Enlightened One. 


	2. Act II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not beta'd because i wanted it up asap!!! this was originally only meant to be a one shot but alasss

Manuela sat alone on the front step of a temple, bathed in moonlight. Even from outside, she could hear the gentle hum of chorals from within; chorals that felt so fake and fraudulent that they made her sick. At least her song was  _ honest.  _ Still, she needed shelter on her journey, and temples offered it, even to humans. Though they called her ‘elvenlike’ and preached about the importance of surrendering all one’s sense of self to fit in with the elves. Just for even a shred of the respect that they gave to one another. She wrapped her fur a little closer around her shoulder.

If she listened deeply, she could feel the melody, could predict where it was going. Even if she didn’t know the words, she could hum along. Perhaps the message of the song was false, but the rhythm was not, and she could feel a lament within it. 

A shadow crossed the moonlight. She looked up. A person.

“I am sorry,” he said, but she barely heard his voice, as gentle and ethereal as it was, for looking at his form. Through the scruffy, ocean hair on his head, poked two horns--they looked like, with their glossy surfaces, almost holographic, iridescent shine--what was the word? A necklace she had been gifted once--phantom quartz they had called the gems laid into it. It suited the man; he looked like a phantom in the night, the phantom of the night sky, with skin covered in stars. 

“My, my,” she breathed, trying to regain any sort of composure. “You sure are a handsome young man.”

“I am older than the stone you sit upon,” he said, then offered her a taloned hand. “I am The Enlightened One.”

“A saint, are you?” Manuela said. She looked at his outstretched hand, waiting, cautious.

He shook his head. “A seer.”

“What do you see in my future, then?” She asked, cocking an eyebrow. 

“A mirror. Myself.” That smirk. It was--it was a look she would expect on any other tiefling, but not  _ this  _ one. It was devilish. She laughed. 

“What brings a seer out here? Came to look for your future wife? No man will have me, you know.”

He shook his head. “I am to travel to the capital, to visit the high elven council and speak to The Immaculate One.”

“The Immaculate One is a myth,” she said.

“Nay,” The Enlightened One shook his head, “she is hiding.”

“What brings you here, songstress?” He asked, and the bluntness of the question disarmed her. 

“I don’t know. Perhaps I had a vision, too.”

He offered her his hand again. She met his eyes this time. It was not pity there, no, it was...ease? Fondness? She couldn’t quite place the look. This time, she took his hand. This time, she let him pull her up, until they were standing, inches apart in the cold night, the white plumes of their breath melding together. “What do you really see in my future? How many failed romances? How long does this curse last? I’m a mess, I drink like a fish, you see. Lazy, hot-headed, slovenly,” she sighed, “do I need to say more?”

He shook his head. They stepped apart. 

“I’ll pay for a room at an inn for you,” he said. 

“Hey, you can’t buy—”

He shook his head. “The temples are cold and unwelcoming. Why do you stay there?”

Manuela sighed. “I suppose I hope that I’ll find the goddess.”

“You never do?”

“No need to rub it in.”

Still, she took the money when he offered it, and paid for a room instead of a beer or a cup of mead. It annoyed her, for some reason, to think that The Enlightened One was the kind who picked up any old person that he saw in need of shelter. She wanted to be the exception. Selfishly. Perhaps she hoped that he really did see himself in her future; it would be a first.

So she made herself the exception.

She woke early for once, tracked him down, insisted on joining him for his journey, even if it would take her back to the capital that she so hated. Instead he told her that he was only meant to go in the direction of The Immaculate One for so long. Now he was free to travel as he pleased. 

She promised to go with him to the front line of the war, just so long as he promised to help her find some guy who wouldn’t be scared away before they’d even traded names.

* * *

He liked the company. It was refreshing. He had only ever really been around his family, or around the people he read for. Manuela was honest, confident and yet so insecure, beautiful and proud of it. She talked about making the most of her assets, dressing her eyes in all sorts of pretty colours, painting her lips. Whatever she did, she looked nice. 

The two of them were wandering souls, she said. They had an inherent camaraderie. He cared for the soldiers on the battlefield, found ways to guide them, to see what was coming and prevent disaster. And she stood by his side, kept the enemy docile, dampened the damage. He had never met a more powerful healer--other than himself, of course.

Manuela tolerated--just barely--the pathetic attempts of young elven lords to impress her. She called them adorable, naive.  _ They’ll grow up just like their fathers.  _ She said to him when they were alone. 

Byleth’s counsel, it was said, ended the war. Soothed the blood debt of the elven lords and the half-mortal empress whose mother they’d murdered. The empress herself seemed to look at him with eyes that meant love, a promise of marriage and power--just for a little while--until she tore down the institution just as they had planned. There were others, too--he was not so naive that he couldn’t recognise the meaning in the flush on the nurse’s cheeks, or the lingering eye contact of the warriors from their battlefield. All he knew was that their youngest, the Ashen Demon would have been just as favoured, that their affection was entirely conditional. He Saw it. 

On the day the peace agreement was signed, Manuela got so drunk he had to carry her to her tent, where she stopped outside just to fold her hands against her hips, missing twice, and peer into the bushes behind it. “Hey!” She smiled. “Come on out.”

A small boy had been hiding in the shrubbery. He had the pointed ears and lilac skin of a moon elf. “Are you Manuela Casagranda, madam?” He said, hands clutched against his chest. She nodded. “My mother said she saw you perform once and that your singing healed her headaches! Thank you!” He bowed deep. 

“Oh!” Manuela sank unsteady to a crouch. “What does your mother look like? Is she like you?”

He nodded. “She has the longest hair of anyone in the world! She wears it as a flower on her head.”

Manuela smiled. “I remember her. I hope she’s well. You’d better be a good boy for her, now, okay?”

“Okay!” The boy smiled, then flushed and ran away into the forest. 

Manuela sighed, then was silent for a few moments. Perhaps she was reflecting on the good she had done, perhaps she finally realised that she had more virtues than she thought. She was kind. She was protective. He only wished she’d be able to remember when morning came. 

He did not expect her sniffling, or her tears soaking into the front of his cloak when she cried against his chest. 

In the days after, they packed up their things, said their goodbyes, and he, without his companion’s knowledge, sent a page ahead to warn all the innkeepers that they ought to keep an eye on Manuela if she showed up. 

“Where are you going to go?” She asked him. 

“Home,” he said. 

She sighed. “I suppose I should go home, too.” A laugh escaped her lips, more punctuation than anything else. “I don’t think I could handle it. That boy’s mother is one of the noblewomen from my city. She’s a real bigot, too. Says I’m the only good human she’s met.”

“You still healed her?”

“I was young and stupid, I still thought that being good was enough to make others like me, to like my kind. Her little boy is so small and sweet, he hasn’t had the chance to grow up mean yet, but I can’t waste my energy hoping that he won’t.”

Byleth closed his eyes. “He’ll be snobbish, but he’ll grow out of it. He’ll go to study abroad and meet a young human woman who shares his passion for the arcane. He’ll fall in love with her and abandon his family line to elope.” He opened his eyes. Manuela stared at him, then eased into a laugh. 

“Why sit here and reassure me anyway? I’m sure there are plenty of better people to take up your time. You could have your pick of anyone in the world.”

“I want to be here with you. I love you, Manuela.”

He watched the emotions cross her face. Surprise, disbelief, understanding— “You must have me confused with someone else,” she laughed.

He shook his head. “Please marry me.”

It was the first time he’d ever seen her speechless.

* * *

Mercedes found the pool by the light of the stars. She’d walked for miles, for days--her step-father would only just have been informed that she’d run away. He certainly would not have time to stop her. That was--if the spirit ever really showed up. The throne at the centre of the pool was empty. 

_ Byleth?  _ She had called out, kneeling.  _ Byleth Regina?  _

But no response came.

Perhaps she needed something to offer to summon the spirit. She had nothing of use with her, though, unless she could somehow scavenge through the forest to search for something worth the being’s while. And so she traversed the woods, collected the safe berries from the trees and the snow from the leaves of the firs. She worked for an hour to purify it and use her magic to heat and cool until she had something sweet on her. A simple iced jelly. It wasn’t much, but it was the best she could do without turning back. 

When she returned to the pool, a figure lay at its centre, head in its arms against the seat of the stone throne, breathing heavily. From its back it bled dark, thick blood. 

“My goodness!” Mercedes waded into the pool, ignoring the cold. “Let me see that, are you okay? What happened?” She scrambled through her pack, holding it above the water, ignoring her own shivers. The small vial of disinfectant salve finally found her fingers, and she smoothed it onto the cut. Up close, she saw that the being seemed to be a woman--a woman who grit her teeth and hissed at the sting. 

“I know, it’s not pleasant, but it will help, I promise.”

“Thank you,” she breathed.

Mercedes rest her hand against the cut, willing the magic to her fingertips to weave the skin back together. As she did so, the woman turned, caught her with one muscular arm, sending a rush of warmth through her body. Either it was magic, or it was the beauty of her patient--her skin looked like stars, her eyes like twin moons, hair unruly and seaweed dark. She bit back a gasp. Somehow she had not noticed the horns. This was a tiefling. Everything the other nobles had said amounted to a message of distrust towards tieflings, but in the moment Mercedes couldn’t help but forget it all. 

Finally the wound closed beneath her fingers, and the tiefling woman sighed in relief, before lifting Mercedes up onto the rock throne to sit next to her. Upon her brow she noticed a crown of carved bone in the shape of constellations. 

“What’s your name?” She asked, holding one of Mercedes’ hands in her own, taloned one. 

“Mercedes von Martritz.” She was surprised she had even managed to speak. “Who--who are you?”

The woman looked out across the pool. “I am Fell Star.”

“That’s such a pretty name,” Mercedes smiled. “Do you mind if I ask how you got that wound?”

Fell Star was silent. 

“You don’t have to say,” Mercedes said and squeezed her shoulder. “You look so tired.”

“I’m fine.”

She shook her head. She knew exhaustion when she saw it. “You can rest here, if you like,” she said, and eased Fell Star’s head into her lap. It didn’t surprise her how easily she fell to her touch, surrendered to sleep.

* * *

It was selfish, Byleth supposed, to want to keep Mercedes at her side, but from the moment she woke up to the soft touch of gentle hands combing through her hair, she knew she had met someone different. Someone who cared for her without knowing her, who offered her assistance without asking anything in return.

So, she asked Mercedes to stay by her side, and the woman agreed. She really was beautiful, one of the elven, with pearlescent skin and soft hair the colour of honey. Mercedes helped her gather food and outfit her little cave behind the waterfall so that it felt more home than hideout. She found fabrics to stitch with furs, so that Byleth could venture into town without looking too out of place (although an elf and a tiefling together would always attract attention.) They talked together for hours at local eateries, where Byleth offered small blessings as payment for sweets and a warm drink. 

And Mercedes didn’t seem to want to leave. Perhaps she felt selfish for her staying, too. Perhaps they were both selfish. She had noticed the woman looking over her shoulder, as if she was waiting for someone to come after her and to disturb the peaceful routine they had developed. 

“Why did you come here?” 

Mercedes sighed. “It’s...it doesn’t matter,” she smiled. 

“Tell me.”

“My step-father wants to marry me off to another elven noble. I found rumours of a spirit that could grant wishes and I told myself that I’d go to see her, but I think really it was just some way of justifying running away.”

“Do you want to get married?”

“I want to stay as a cleric, but the Goddess was the one who made me a noble and this is the life that nobles lead. My step-father took care of me and my mother for so long...I don’t know. He sent me a letter the day before I left saying that the date was finalised. I’ve been wondering how to respond ever since.”

“You should tell him how you feel.”

Mercedes looked up. 

“You should be able to live the life you want. It’s not fair to sacrifice your whole life just to repay a debt.”

The shift from dark to light on Mercedes’ face made Byleth’s heart sing. “You’re right.” She smiled. “I’ll write to him today and tell him that I’m going to refuse the proposal; after all, I’ve fallen for someone else.”

“Who?” Byleth asked, leaning forward. 

“You, of course.”

* * *

Jeritza found the Mercenary in the forest. Their dance was one of blades and blood. They were skilled he saw, even as his consciousness kept faltering back and forth, the fight continuing nonetheless. Their swords reflected back the moonlight from the canopy above, reflected into the light of the tiefling’s eyes, eyes that cooly watched Jeritza’s every move. 

They were perfectly matched. Jeritza was certain that if he defeated them and read their entrails, theirs would answer all the questions in the universe. Instead, they caught him off guard, disarmed him, tipped his balance and pushed him to the ground, straddling his chest with their sword of bone at his throat. 

Bloodlust had never felt so sweet. 

“Do you want me to kill you?” They said. Their voice was too calm--it was scary in its smoothness, like wind howling through a chimney. 

“One of us has to die,” he said. And he was right. This was the battle he had waited his whole life for, and he wanted nothing more than the Ashen Demon’s sword to tear through his flesh. But they sat back and sheathed the blade instead, not once taking their eyes off of him. 

“Duel me,” he said.

“No,” they said, and their voice was just as haunting, even as it was firm. “How can I kill you when I know nothing about you?”

He grit his teeth. The Ashen Demon took his sword and belted it around their waist, then led him through the forest on stupid excursions to pick berries or to play with rabbits. They took him to build shelters of sticks and make beds from leaves and down. And then they would sleep, and Jeritza would steal back his sword and strike at them as soon as they woke. And they would be ready to disarm him and take the blade all over again. 

Nothing had ever frustrated him more. And yet...somehow the Ashen Demon became his life. He was drawn to them, pulled to be close. He had never wanted anything more than he wanted them, the legendary mercenary. 

“You could just leave,” they said, watching him eat from a log.

“Could you give me some peace, if you don’t want anything?”

They scoffed. “It seems like you might, in fact, like me.”

He hated them for the truth in their words. The next time they spared and the next time the Ashen Demon came out on top, they leant up and pressed their lips against his, and they tasted sweeter than anything he had ever eaten.

* * *

Byleth saw all the versions of Jeritza, including the one that he claimed was obsessed with them. He didn’t believe it for one moment. Whenever the Death Knight came to the front, he tried to kill them. At least at first. It took some time, but Byleth earned his trust, asked him why he behaved in the way that he did. 

_ I am keeping us safe.  _ He said. 

Byleth couldn’t argue with that. The world was a cruel place and sometimes the only way to avoid the monsters was to become the scariest of them all. As they and Jeritza became lovers, they and the Death Knight became allies, then reluctant friends. Perhaps, slowly, they noticed Jeritza’s bloodlust fade away into the background, become nothing but performance. 

One night, together below the stars, Jeritza had told him that their life was a job.  _ Once this war is over, I’d like to indulge in luxury with you.  _ Byleth had been silent.  _ Is this what love is?  _

They couldn’t answer that question for him. Instead they closed their eyes and let the night take them. Sometimes silence was better than any answer. When they woke, they saw their fingers had become intertwined together around the hilt of a knife.

* * *

Byleth, Byleth, Byleth. 

The Ashen Demon, the Fell Star, the Enlightened One. The Three Holy Shards of Sothis. They made their way slowly back together. The Ashen Demon to the starlit pools of their sister’s domain, bringing the tearful reunion of long lost siblings with them. The Fell Star with her sibling and their lovers to the Glade of Stars, where their father’s grave lay untouched, scattered with diamonds and moonstone, and where the Enlightened One welcomed them back to the place they had always belonged. 

The Three, no so identical anymore, together again at long last in happiness and harmony. 

**Author's Note:**

> guess what its a chapter fic because i hate myself and also the world. i dont even like fe3h that much why am i writing this. whatever it was fun. let me know who your favourite character from the game is below!! mine is linhardt! he is also not in this. i dont understand the way my inspiration works these days but at least it does god bles


End file.
